Every Spring to Come
by Veil of Shadows
Summary: Jay and the journey upward.


"Ten," Solon says, tapping his fingers against the table. "You've been ten for a while now."

Jay keeps his hands folded, keeps his eyes lowered, keeps his voice quiet. "Oh."

Silence.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Solon watching him. "I wonder if you know when your birthday is," he comments, the tone friendly, but there's hardness behind it. Jay knows he's being tested.

This question is easy, though. "It doesn't matter," he murmurs. It comes out a little sad, even though it's not supposed to.

"Correct." The casual veneer is gone from his countenance. He is stern, unforgiving. "You don't need to know these things. They aren't important."

Jay nods his head, keeping the rest of his body still.

Solon hooks three fingers under Jay's chin-forcing his face up towards Solon's-and considers him. "All you need to know," Solon continues, "is how to follow my orders. Everything else is irrelevant. Make yourself into a weapon to be wielded by your master-" The fingers fall away. Solon's smile widens. "-and you should need nothing else."

Jay swallows to unstick his throat. "Yes, sir."

* * *

And so Jay does not know that he is two months past eleven when his world ends.

He doesn't have time to think about it during the battle, when he's fighting for his life against a sea of soldiers older and taller and stronger than he; it's not until he manages to break away from them that he realizes he's been cut open. Blood spatters across the ground as he runs. It spreads, it spreads, it _hurts_, but he keeps running. Maybe he'll find Master. Maybe he'll be taken back, maybe he'll be forgiven-

His legs give out; everything fades to black.

* * *

The first year passes quietly, without fuss or protest. There are otters. They bring him food, which after a few days he manages to confirm is not, in fact, poisoned. From the window in the room where he stays he can see row upon row of tiny houses, each built for bodies smaller even than his. He does not know how long it has been since his failure. He cannot even count the passing of the days, because the otters live in a cave, and it is impossible to see the sun.

As soon as he judges himself to be well, he slips out of the cave and starts searching. Every day he searches: searches for signs, searches for clues, searches for someone who is searching for him. Often he will go out towards the city and just stand, hiding himself in the way Master taught him, and listen. There is nothing, but he keeps looking anyway.

After a few weeks, the otters begin to notice his absences. "Where do you go every day?" asks the one in the green hat, as he plucks a string on his instrument.

Jay shakes his head slowly from side to side.

"It's all right if you don't want to say," comes the reply, accompanied by a small smile that Jay does not quite understand. "But make sure you come back, okay?"

There is no real point in coming back, but he does anyway, day after day, week after week, long after the facts have led him to one horrifying, inescapable conclusion. There is no real point in doing anything anymore, but he still goes out every day, and he still returns, as if it matters. He is alive only because he insists on deluding himself. It is the worst kind of weakness. Master would be angry.

The otters invite him to eat dinner with them, and to work on a submarine with them, and to play instruments with them, and to practice martial arts with them. Sometimes he accepts, and sometimes he does not. It doesn't matter.

And then, as the weeks turn into months, as the seasons begin to change, he finds himself going out less and less.

This is how eleven turns into twelve.

* * *

One of the things he has had to learn about the Legacy is that things work very differently here. Even something as simple as the passing of the seasons: while the leaves of mainland trees do change colors in fall, none of them, as far as he knows, turn blue.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Quppo turns his head up towards the sky. "It's such a peaceful color, too . . . I think I could sit here all day, don't you?"

Jay looks up once more into the branches of what the Oresoren call Kippo's Cerulean Tree, verifies that it is indeed a vivid, eye-blinding shade of cerulean, and, after a long pause, nods. It occurs to him that he is smiling.

"Fall is my favorite season," Quppo continues. "A lot of good things happen in the fall. The trees change color, there's the Last Cracking of the Scallops . . . ." He fiddles with his whiskers. "It's a time of growth and change. What we think is dying is just being reborn! Good things happen in the fall."

He casts a significant look at Jay. It's been almost two years since he was found by Quppo and his brothers, two years since the day everything changed. They didn't talk about this last year, but then last year he didn't particularly want to think about it.

He thinks about it now-about the mission, about the battle, about how that was the way Solon worked, because that is the easiest thing to think about. He reminds himself again that it was wrong.

He remembers things. He remembers a lot of things.

"My birthday's in three days," he says too-casually, knowing that Quppo will pick up his meaning either way. "I'll be thirteen then."

* * *

The shop is at the heart of Werites Beacon's main street, just steps from the entrance to the city, and both it and its owner are about as much of an institution as can exist in a place so new. It's early yet when Jay strolls through the gates like he belongs there and lets himself in (ignoring the CLOSED sign on the door), but Tom is already setting up in a corner of the store, adjusting the racks of charms hanging on the back wall. That man likes his work.

"Jay," he says, without turning around. "You could knock first."

And Jay could have silenced his steps-not doing so was a _deliberate choice_-but he's still a little miffed. "How did you know it was me?"

"You didn't knock," comes the reply.

He frowns and files that away. It doesn't do to become predictable. "Oh."

Tom's laugh is deep, a belly-laugh, the laugh of someone who has the luxury of being charmed and amused by everything. "You haven't been around the block as many times as you think you have, kid."

Jay scowls. He doesn't like being condescended to.

But Tom seems to have had his fill of poking fun, at least for the moment. "So tell me," he says, and his face turns-not grave, but more serious. "What's new around these parts?"

Jay smiles, leaning against the counter, and begins to talk. This is the moment—the culmination of the last week's worth of work. It's completely mundane gossip, arguments and awkward courtships and all the rest, but Tom's nodding and smiling as he goes about his work; occasionally he'll laugh or put in a _they'll never last_ or _oh, that's just their way_. He likes to know all these things, which puzzles Jay, because they seem so laughably unimportant. But Tom remembers the stories of everyone in Werites Beacon-evidently they are important to him.

It bears thinking about, at least.

"And it was just yesterday she only came up to my knee, too." Tom shakes his head. "Throwing lemonade in young men's faces, hmm? And you say she seemed quite close to him."

Jay shrugs. "I just see them together often."

"You keep your eyes open," Tom says, smiling. "It's a good trait to have. Think they're serious?"

He turns his head to the side."I wouldn't know about that kind of thing," he says stiffly.

"Come on." Jay thinks he's being teased again. "Think of it as a test of your powers of perception."

"Fourteen." He could have lied, he supposes, but how much does it matter?

Tom nods. "You're only just getting to that age. Maybe you'll have a better idea of what I mean a few years from now, hmm?"

"No," Jay says automatically. He folds his arms.

Tom's grin only dims a little. "Not interested, I see." His tone's still light.

"Not really." Jay straightens. They've spent more than enough time on this subject. "What about you?" he asks, mimicking Tom's casual, cheerful tone. "Hear anything interesting lately?"

Of course Tom sees right through it; his grin widens. "You really like to get to the point, don't you?"

Hmph. A different tack next time, perhaps.

"But all right, I'll bite. Now who's been around here lately, hmm . . . ."

Tom has a very good memory, it seems, especially for the people who come through his shop-he is an encyclopedia of faces and names and habits, some trivial and others hinting at something more interesting. Jay listens, trying to fit the facts against what he knows about the many visitors to Werites Beacon, and the strange and confusing politics of the city.

"Wait," he says, when Tom gets to one particular customer. "What did he look like again?"

Tom repeats himself, eyebrows raising in silent question.

He frowns down at the (meticulously polished) countertop. It sounds familiar somehow, but-ah, yes. He remembers now. The man lingers often near the fountain plaza and in the bar downstairs. He clearly isn't there to socialize-though he does talk to some of the townspeople sometimes-and he doesn't seem like a daydreamer, either. Too clear-eyed. Not a regular. Add that to a couple of odd purchases . . . .

It's a mystery. He likes mysteries. It's too boring if everything is obvious, isn't it?

"Do you mind if I hang around here for the next week or so? I'll help out in the backroom-free of charge, of course."

Tom chuckles. "You're seriously asking me if I'd turn down free help?."

Jay smiles to himself. "I never like to assume."

* * *

"More tea, dear?"

The Holy Sovereign smiles placidly-carefully, he thinks, careful as always to appear inconsequential. Ordinary. Like a harmless, defenseless old woman, and not at all like she could have him executed this very moment if she so chose. (Which she could.) Jay doesn't know why she bothers, because he knows perfectly well who she is, and she knows perfectly well that he knows, and it isn't like he's going to underestimate her just because she's good at playing a role that isn't hers.

Except that, in a way, he already _has_: if he had only been more careful in his searching, kept a lower profile, he would not be here right now, sitting across the table from a woman who has both method and motive to completely destroy his life. (Or the life that he has stolen, as his _former teacher _would put it, but either way it is his now, and Jay does not much care.) She would not even know that he was alive.

But he wasn't and he is and she does, so he shakes his head and politely drains the last of his cup. He judges that safe: if she wanted him dead _now_, she has better methods than poisoned tea at her disposal. "That's quite all right, Your Highness," he says, and winces inwardly, because the _your highness _was a little more brittle than he really wanted it to be. Unlike her, he doesn't see the point in pretending to be less than he is-somehow he doubts she's forgotten about the time he nearly succeeded at assassinating her-but there's no sense in being antagonistic, either.

"Just call me Musette, dear." She doesn't seem to have taken offense, but who knows? "Now, I suppose I don't have to tell you the reason I called you here today, hmm . . . ?"

_Called _is a strange way to describe being accosted by a large, purple-haired man and dragged bodily into the room while being serenaded about truth, justice, and the power of love, but Jay refrains from pointing that out. "With all due respect to you and your subordinate, madam," he says, "there's nothing illegal about what I'm doing. The Legacy is unclaimed land, under the jurisdiction of international law only, and international law has no provisions against espionage." _That _would prevent countries from spying on each other, which would be positively awful, he is sure.

Of course, that's the least of the charges she could bring him in for, if she wanted to do it that way, but they both know that; he doesn't need to say it.

"Mm. I'm aware of that." She raises the teacup to her lips and sips, delicately. He can't tell what she's thinking at all. "I should apologize for Curtis's behavior, by the way. He can get a little . . . overeager sometimes."

He watches her place the cup back in its saucer, gingerly. "It isn't a problem, madam."

"Your grace is appreciated," she demurs. "At any rate, I only wanted to ask you a few questions." And then she sits up straighter, just a touch, and though her smile remains rooted to the spot, her eyes are suddenly sharp, alert. Intent. "Are you working for someone?" she asks him.

He matches her gaze. "I'm completely independent. I don't answer to anyone." Could that last part be interpreted as rude? He finds he can't make himself care as much as he should. "And before you ask, I don't know where he is or what he's up to. We lost contact a long time ago."

Which is as disgustingly pretty a euphemism as anything she's said since she entered the room, but he dares her to point that out. (She doesn't. Nor does she pretend not to know what Jay means by _he_.) "I expected as much. Are you sure you don't want something to drink, dear?"

Does she expect everything, or is she just saying that to be infuriating? "Quite sure."

She pours herself another cup of tea, drops in two lumps of sugar, and stirs with an even rhythm. "But you don't know the identities of those you sell your information to."

_You should know my reputation_, he wants to say, but he bites his tongue. "I know everything. Information is my business, after all." He leans forward onto the desk, trying to shape his face into something . . . kind of honest and open-looking. His best pitch. "I don't peddle state secrets, if that's what you're asking. I'm not interested in playing politics, or undermining Rexalia."

That's actually true, for the most part—he has no desire to become entangled in the games of childish rulers. Best to stay out of it.

"I'm glad, then." Her expression is as unfathomable as ever. "Independent. That was the word you used?"

Well, that isn't foreboding at all. "It was."

"Hmm." He is so tired of her thoughtful pauses. "I wonder how amenable you would be to changing that status. Our reconnaissance operations here could use some work."

Wait.

_That's _what she wants?

She raises her eyebrows questioningly. His surprise is probably showing on his face.

"You want me to work for you," he says, because he still can't quite believe that's really what's going on here.

"Well, yes." She says it as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "You'll be properly compensated, of course. We have standard rates of pay for our, hmm, foreign service employees . . . ."

Because that was his biggest concern here, of course.

He doesn't work for anyone. He doesn't answer to anyone. If he wanted an employer, he could have sold himself to the highest bidder months ago. They've all heard of him by now-they'd be clawing each others' eyes out to get him on their side. But he likes living under his own power.

"I'd be happy to work for you, ma'am," he says anyway, because he is still sitting across from the most powerful woman in the world, and under those conditions 'your own power' can't be anything but a lie. He'll play her game. The other option-he's never been one to tempt fate. Who knows what's going on in that head of hers?

Still, he has to hold back a sigh of relief. He'd been expecting their meeting to go far more . . . disastrously.

"I'm glad to hear it, Jay. I'll have Andrew draw up the contract later." She knocks her spoon against the side of her cup, twice, to shake it out. "Well, then, I think that's almost it. Just one more thing. I must admit I've been wondering where you've been staying here . . . ."

The bottom drops out of his stomach before he remembers that she doesn't know, she can't know or she wouldn't be asking, and _this is not a threat._ "If you need to contact me, Your Highness," he says, keeping his expression calm, "then I can give you the name of a man who can get in touch with me quickly."

She actually looks like she's curious now-lovely. She had better not go look. "You won't tell me, Jay?"

"No, I won't."

How many men would she have to send out before one of them stumbled on the cave, he wonders? Would it help if they moved? She has him firmly cornered but it won't do to give her any more leverage-and if they want to _study_-

But she seems to take that as the final word. Not that that necessarily means anything. "Ah, well, then. Thank you," she says benevolently, _graciously_, and he bristles. "It certainly was strange meeting you here, hmm? I must say, you weren't the first person I expected to see here today."

He stands. "I imagine not, madam."

Fifteen is about reminders. Bits and pieces of the past, making themselves known to him. Running only works so well, even on the Legacy.

And power games are so much more complicated when you have something to lose.

* * *

But if fifteen is infuriating, sixteen is just strange.

Things go back to normal quickly enough. The Radiant withdraw; amends are made; peace treaties are signed. Werites Beacon, always a resilient city, recovers quickly from its former state of panic. The townspeople collectively shrug and return to their peaceful, mundane lives, absorbing any changes to the status quo so effortlessly that you might almost be fooled into thinking that things had always been this way.

Jay, on the other hand-well. Some changes are distinctly disadvantageous. Like the fact that he's become much more recognizable in Werites Beacon lately. Or the existence of a certain infuriating, red-haired bandit-all right, that's not exactly a change, but his _completely unwarranted and unwanted_ presence in Jay's life definitely is. Speaking of which:

"Oi! Jay, wait _up_, will ya? I know y'can hear-hey, don't ignore me!"

Jay turns his eyes heavenward and keeps walking. Faster.

It takes Moses almost a quarter of a way along the outer circle to catch up with him. "You are one little_-bastard_-you know that?" He's panting heavily, red-faced and out of breath. "Would it kill you t'pay attention to what I'm sayin' fer once?"

"Hmm? What was that?" Jay lets the smile creep up into the corners of his mouth. "I could have sworn I heard the chattering of some primitive life form . . . ."

Moses positively growls. "Damnit, Jay, _don't make me punch your face in._"

"You're far too slow for that, but go on, try. I could use a laugh."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jay sees Moses lunge forward. He twists quickly out of the way, stepping to the side. Moses stumbles forward; Jay pushes lightly on his shoulder-

"Aaah!"

Seeing Moses sprawled out in the dirt like this is _very _amusing, Jay decides.

Moses groans, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Hell_._" He spits out dust. "What'd y'do that for?"

"Turnabout is fair play, bandit," Jay says, very conspicuously wiping his hand off on his shorts. Today is _definitely_ a good day. "Besides, who knows what diseases you might have picked up, rolling around in the dirt like you do?"

"For the last time, I don't have any diseases, and I _don' run around in the dirt_, okay?" He sits up slowly, still wincing a little. "Besides, you started it by bein' a little brat. All I wanted t'do was talk, an' you-"

"Because I have such an interest in talking to feeble savages." Jay tosses his head. "Really, don't you think I have better things to do than listen to you try and fail to string a sentence together?"

Moses rubs his temples with one hand. "Swear I never had a headache this bad 'fore you came around," he grinds out, his voice hard. "Maybe I just wanted t'know how you were, huh? Y'ever think of that? I ain't gonna stand-I ain't gonna _sit_ here an' listen to this crap, so if you think it's so much'f a _burden _to talk t'me for five minutes, I guess I'll just-"

Jay swallows hard. "I was having a pleasant day until you showed up," he says automatically, and continues, "and since when do you care about how I am?" before he can remind himself that asking questions like that, especially when you already know the answer, is always a bad idea.

Moses scratches his head and gives Jay a long, careful look. "'Course I care," he says, too kindly, "you're-well. I care."

Well.

Jay shuts his mouth belatedly and shifts from one foot to the other, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm on business." It's a clumsy way to change the topic, but that's really beside the point.

"Yeah?" Moses raises an eyebrow. "Y'mean that-information dealin' deal?"

"Information dealing . . . deal," Jay repeats slowly, raising his eyebrows.

"What else'm I s'posed to call it?"

"When most people talk, Moses," Jay explains sweetly, "they generally strive not to sound like total imbeciles. Although I suppose we wouldn't want to mislead people . . . ."

"Hey!"

Jay just smiles. "And yes," he says, "that was what I meant by business. There's a lot going on in Werites Beacon right now; I'll probably be here for another week or two."

"Y'don't-that's right," Moses says, "y'live with those otters, huh? Forgot about that."

Jay nods curtly, hoping that Moses will take the silence as lack of interest with the topic and talk about something else. Of course, the problem with that idea is that it rests on the assumption that Moses is capable of reading between the lines.

Sure enough, he keeps chattering on, totally oblivious. "They sure are a friendly bunch. Kind of strange, though." He straightens up then; the expression he gives Jay is oddly intense. "No folks of your own, then?"

_Be grateful. I took you in. Not even your own parents wanted you, and yet I took you in-_

"Quite frankly," Jay says coolly, "that's none of your business." Almost immediately, he regrets it; not that it was Moses' business at all, but if he was going to be that transparent, he might as well just have answered the question.

Moses' entire face seems to contract; he looks surprised and maybe a little hurt, and Jay feels a strange rush of satisfaction. "Oh. Look, I didn't mean-"

Jay decides to extricate himself from this conversation before Moses decides to take pity on him, or something equally nauseating. "Right, I'm sure. I have business to attend to, and no time to stand around waiting for you to try and put coherent sentences together. Have fun communing with beasts." _That _comes out more biting than he'd intended, and he feels a little guiltier than he should about it.

As he walks away, he resolves not to be seen in Werites Beacon for another month. Two, if at all possible.

* * *

One morning, after Grune and the mist and-everything, after it's all over and done with, he wakes before dawn and leaves through the window. At first he doesn't even know where he's going; his thoughts are a complex tangle of tension and restlessness and purpose that don't unwind themselves until, all at once, walking alone along the dirt-path-towards-civilization, he realizes what exactly he's come here to do.

By the time he reaches Werites Beacon the sky is a hazy blue, the sun not quite visible over the horizon, but the city is still asleep, quiet. He keeps his eyes firmly on the path ahead of him as he rushes past shops and darkened houses. Making it to the lighthouse without attracting suspicion turns out to be even easier than expected-he'd thought someone might see him by the bandit camp, but no, Moses' merry little band of savages seems to be sleeping in today. Just as well, then. He hits the button on the console to call up the tram.

It slides into the docking station with a hiss and a whine, its doors opening onto cold air and sterile white light. No turning back now. Jay strolls more than walks over the threshold, feeling a kind of strange calm come over him; his hands find the right switches and levers by themselves. They stay hovering there long after the tram begins to hurtle-full speed-through the tunnel, and the rush of air past his ears seems much louder than usual. It's not long before Mirage Palace (not that it's much of a palace at this point) comes up into view-a ghost house if there ever was one, even emptier than usual. They'd scared off most of the monsters when they'd-come through here a few days ago.

He steps out, stands there for a long time: he's straddling the edge of a precipice, it feels like, and it's impossible to-he can't-he should start walking, if he wants to make it back by tomorrow-

_Stop running_.

Funny, but his inner voice sounds a lot like Shirley.

_I'm not running_, he thinks. This is the opposite of running. He's there to check a body, to confirm, to confront-something-

_Then why did you come alone?_ _Why didn't you want anyone to know you were here?_

And he stops then, because it's not just the voice in his head but the gaping maw of the palace asking him the questions: why? What about this vague, half-formed idea of a mission made him think it was worth an entire day's trek? Because he saw Solon die, struck the killing blow himself, and there is nothing about a rotting corpse that will give him answers to the hundred questions he's afraid to put words to, much less ask.

So why _is _he here, really?

He stands there for a very long time, and then he raises his chin and says, "You're dead," not very loudly. (_You're gone_, he thinks in his head.) The cavern echoes it back at him.

"It's over," he adds, and that's harder to say and harder to believe, because he remembers four years of looking over his shoulder, waiting for everything he had built to be snatched away from him; sometimes he'd wake up in the middle of the night and tiptoe through the house, check every closet and hiding place twice just to make sure no one had come to bring him home. He'd always known-could never forget-that none of this was ever meant to be _his_.

But he says it, and he forces himself to smile, and he steps back into the tram, walking away from Mirage Palace for the last time. His hands are shaking so badly that he can barely start the thing, but by the time he steps outside again, he feels better than he has in a long time, and the thin sliver of sunlight peeking over the trees looks a lot like a promise.

By his own reckoning, Jay is three months shy of seventeen when his life begins.


End file.
